Entrepreneur Elio Silva’s ambitious plans for a new grocery store on State Road in Vineyard Haven just got more ambitious. On Thursday the Martha’s Vineyard Commission reviewed a proposed expansion of the store that would bring over 20,000 square feet of new floor space to the property.
Last year the commission approved Mr. Silva’s plans to consolidate his two businesses, Vineyard Grocer and Tisbury Farm Market, at the location that most recently housed Island Home Furnishings. Mr. Silva had planned to demolish and rebuild the front building on the property, expanding the footprint of the complex from 5,800 to 7,400 square feet. Now Mr. Silva wants to demolish the concrete block building in the back as well and rebuild it with wraparound porch, as well as a basement and second floor that would be used for storage. The second floor of the new front building would also house four new affordable housing units on its second floor. The addition of the new back building would bring the complex’s footprint to 11,120 square feet. For comparison, Cronig’s Supermarket, Mr. Silva’s cross-street competitor has a 22,517 square foot footprint.
Mr. Silva said that his desire to expand came during a survey of the current property.
“When we looked at the foundation there was no foundation so the engineers didn’t feel safe letting us continue with the project,” he said. “So they recommended we replace the building. When we started thinking of replacing the building . . . we want to utilize the space as best as possible, so it makes all the sense in the world to have a basement and a second floor.”
“The plan is pretty ambitious,” said commission DRI coordinator Paul Foley. “It packs a lot onto one acre.”
At Thursday’s hearing commissioners voiced concerns about the lot’s ability to accommodate parking, but the one member of the public in attendance said that the planning body was too preoccupied with parking.
“My God, you guys talk a lot about parking,” said Bill Engler of Oak Bluffs. “The more parking you build, the more sprawl you get. . . You’ll never get [public transportation] if you build parking lots. We wouldn’t have Oak Bluffs or Edgartown or Vineyard Haven if at the beginning of the century there were laws about how much parking you need for every place you build. They wouldn’t exist; it would be a big sprawl.”
The public hearing has been closed, but the written record will remain open to receive correspondence until Thursday at noon.
This article appears in February 10, 2012.
Why is it that a gas station at this location was denied by the MVC, as I recall one of the reasons was creating too much competetion ( what happened to free enterprise? ) And it is somehow now fine to allow a huge grocery/ apartment complex at the SAME location? That makes no sense…And in this same regard, the MV Times reports Radio shack planning to move but we dont know where, it is common knowledge that they know they are moving across the street to Vineyard Home Ctr old location as staff from radio shack are publicly looking to sublet space there that they wont need. The TIMES keeps deleting my comments about this, maybe because the radio shack owner is on the MVC and does not want to pay for yet another traffic study that she makes everyone else pay for…Hmmmm.so much for impartial forum.